But now they are making a comeback... Anecdotes about infestations can be found in blogs and newspapers in virtually every major city... Of 521 responding U.S. pest management companies, 95% reported encountering a bedbug infestation in the past year... By comparison, before 2000 only 25% of U.S. survey respondents reported bedbug infestations, according to a 26 July 2010 press release from the NPMA... Another is the resistance bedbugs have developed to pesticides. “Bedbugs have been treated so many times, they have developed a resistance to commercially available products allowed for use by the EPA,” says Dini Miller, an associate professor of entomology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University... Propoxur (sold as Baygon®) is one commercially available chemical that is still effective in killing bedbugs... Steamers and rapid freezing equipment will kill bedbugs on contact... But the insects are experts at hiding, and repeated treatments are required to be effective... In August 2010, the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a joint statement promoting an integrated pest management (IPM) approach to bedbug control... IPM includes heat treatment, vacuuming, nonchemical pesticides (such as diatomaceous earth), and “judicious use” of chemical pesticides... The EPA says it is actively working with industry and researchers to develop new compounds (or new uses of existing compounds) to control bedbugs... That can’t come soon enough for Miller, who has requested government funding to study the bedbug’s genetic and mechanical resistance mechanisms. “Our hope is to eventually manipulate those mechanisms,” Miller says. “In the meantime, we are essentially defenseless. ”

But now they are making a comeback... Anecdotes about infestations can be found in blogs and newspapers in virtually every major city... Of 521 responding U.S. pest management companies, 95% reported encountering a bedbug infestation in the past year... By comparison, before 2000 only 25% of U.S. survey respondents reported bedbug infestations, according to a 26 July 2010 press release from the NPMA... Another is the resistance bedbugs have developed to pesticides. “Bedbugs have been treated so many times, they have developed a resistance to commercially available products allowed for use by the EPA,” says Dini Miller, an associate professor of entomology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University... Propoxur (sold as Baygon®) is one commercially available chemical that is still effective in killing bedbugs... Steamers and rapid freezing equipment will kill bedbugs on contact... But the insects are experts at hiding, and repeated treatments are required to be effective... In August 2010, the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a joint statement promoting an integrated pest management (IPM) approach to bedbug control... IPM includes heat treatment, vacuuming, nonchemical pesticides (such as diatomaceous earth), and “judicious use” of chemical pesticides... The EPA says it is actively working with industry and researchers to develop new compounds (or new uses of existing compounds) to control bedbugs... That can’t come soon enough for Miller, who has requested government funding to study the bedbug’s genetic and mechanical resistance mechanisms. “Our hope is to eventually manipulate those mechanisms,” Miller says. “In the meantime, we are essentially defenseless. ”